We sailed off into the Gulf Stream. Wouldn't you know – the wind was coming straight from the direction that we had planned on for our course! It was a lovely day, very clear and sparkling, with warm winds and sun that made it comfortable to do a bit of sunbathing as we sailed along. And best of all, the water was deep, deep, deep. No more worries about going aground out here!

I took the first watch, 6 to 9, since my stomach didn't relish the thought of going below even to sleep. When the sun at last faded I felt really alone. It was pitch black everywhere; not even the stars were out. It had become very overcast and cloudy. The wind had begun to pick up in velocity, and we were really moving along. I was kind of scared, never having sailed alone at night before. Then I felt better when I thought that if it was light - and I could see those swells that were pursuing me, and the heel of the boat - I might be even more scared!

We picked up some lights after midnight. We thought they must be West End as that was where we were heading. But the characteristics of what we saw didn't match up with the lights that were listed on our charts for West End. We hunted that light down and realized that we had been carried much further north by the Gulf Stream than we had allowed for. To reach West End we had to turn south. This was agreeable since there had been a gradual shift that would take us nicely in that direction. A bright glow on the horizon turned into the West End lights eventually, so at daybreak we had a nice visual fix to dead reckon from.

Squalls caused us to reef the mainsail and mizzen, easing the helm and the motion in general. I hadn't been able to sleep much; too much motion, too many new noises, too many things to think about I guess. I didn't feel too red hot either, although I wasn't actively sick. I usually could manage to put something in a pot and heat it up without problems, but generally would rather spend my time outside in the fresh air.

My last newsletter was filled with all the things that went wrong and problems that occurred; I didn't show much of the happier side of our new life. I vowed not to do this again, but some things do happen that should be reported. Our second night out was one of those.

I just got myself settled down trying to capture some non-existent sleep when Al yelled down at me to get on deck – IMMEDIATELY! He was frantically pulling stuff out of our aft compartment in the cockpit, and the sails were doing all sorts of weird things. I finally understood that the wheel wouldn't respond anymore at all. Al was trying to extract our emergency tiller from its buried depths in that locker. I was sent below for the necessary tools. After a few heroic moments the tiller was in place and secured.

Still there was no response. With the wheel not working, and the tiller not working, it could only mean that there was something wrong with the rudder. Did we even have a rudder? It was too dark to tell. Naturally all this was happening as we were approaching Great Stirrup Cay, the only land between us and Nassau. There was a very strong onshore wind blowing us right down upon it. What now?

Al decided that we could trim the sails and use them to steer us, if not to Nassau, at least away from danger! We started pulling the "strings" and were finally beginning to move again when – WHAP!! The tiller came whipping across the cockpit and got me right in the stomach! I didn't mind a bit, though, because it meant that there was a rudder down there after all, and that we now did have steerage!